Friday, July 14, 2006

Have You Seen Harry Lately?

As there were not much new interesting novels around, i decided to give JK Rowling a try. I always had the perception that the Harry Potter books will be similar to those fantasy books (eg. those Forgoten Realms series), but i was quite wrong as i begin reading the first page of Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince. I got hooked.Unlike my normal reviews which is full of spoilers :p, I'm not going to put any for this one. My only advice for those who have yet to read the book and plan to, is to be WELL PREPARED. Well, everything seems fine until Chapter 27 that is; just wish I stopped at Chapter 26.

In Stephen King's the Dark Tower series, Steve had well prepared its readers right at the beginning of the series on killing all its supporting characters (or was that just me!) in the final book (the 7th book). So I kind of accept the fate of those characters which I have grown to love as they died one by one. JKR just did the opposite. From killing off a not so key character in Order of The Phoniex to the horror outcome in Chapter 27 is really unforgivable. I did expect such will be the ending in the final book but never in the 6th book, which now leave the 7th book with so much uncertainties.

But then again, this will provide JKR the flexibility & freedom in introducing new items into Harry's World, but will it be a bit late? Just wonder how many pages will the final book be. And parents would have a lot to explain to their children about the ending (since you-know-who did triump here).